[Ashcroft]

Hi there,

I'm new to OO so please bear with me. I've searched the forums but couldn't find a solution to this:

How do I change the default style for OPML imports?

I know that style changes will be lost if I close the document without changing the file format from OPML to OO3. I care for the formatting style that's initially used when I open an OPML file.

On my Mac, OPML files are styled with OmniOutliner's default "plain" black & white template. I've edited my template for new documents (via Preferences) and would expect that this template is being used.

Thank you!

[whpalmer4]

There is no "OPML import" style of which I'm aware. Why not do File->New From Template to get a new document in your desired style, open the OPML document, and copy/paste the entire document into the new document.

[Ashcroft]

Thanks for your reply! The suggested solution doesn't come handy for me, though.

Here's my use case: I've got a number of outlines in my Dropbox that I want to share between my iPhone and my Mac. There's no OmniOutliner on the iPhone. If I store my outlines as OPML, I can edit them with CarbonFin on the iPhone and with OmniOutliner on the Mac. The need of constantly creating new files, copying and pasting the old contents and finally overwriting the original files would break the convenience of this setup.

I'm wondering if OO's default template is included somewhere deep down in the application resources and can be edited there. I couldn't find such a file yet, though.

[whpalmer4]

You can edit OmniOutliner's default template by going to the OmniOutliner preferences, clicking the General tab, and then the Edit New Document Template button. The problem is that you aren't creating a new document, you're opening an existing document, so new document templates don't come into play.

You might contact the Omni support folks directly (they aren't guaranteed to see or respond to forum posts) to make sure there isn't something I've missed that would solve this problem for you. Call them at 800-315-6664 or +1-206-523-4152 during Seattle business hours, or email omnioutliner@omnigroup.com.

[Ashcroft]

I contacted Support. I'm posting the reply, just in case someone else is interested in this matter:

Unfortunately there's currently no way to specify a template or style for use when importing OPML. We've got a feature request open in our development database and I've added your note/vote to it; for the time being at least I'm sorry to disappoint.

My meta comment here might be that OO3 is much the best tool to reach for with any kind of outlining application that needs columns (or scripting), but that OPML+003 brings a rather lossy and noisy kind of cross-device traffic if one of your goals is to hang on to a bit of formatting.

Plain text outlines (with MarkDown conventions + CSS post-processing when needed) seem to me to work better for that. (FoldingText + Marked, for example).

OPML is easy for machines to parse and write, but a bit intractable for humans, and it's hard to get away from the fact that it throws away all formatting. Tab-indented text outlines with Markdown formatting do have a number of advantages when it comes to regular migration and re-purposing, with retention of some formatting. With last minute application of a CSS stylesheet (through Marked, for example) that formatting can be quite rich.

Horses for courses, and a rich bag of tools for different purposes, etc …

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